All posts tagged Joyce DiDonato

Sports and the arts overlapped frequently in 2014, making for both a highbrow year in sports and a highly visible year for the arts. Opera singers belted out the national anthem at both the Super Bowl and the World Series. An actor upstaged the French Open. A ballerina’s sportswear ad went viral. And theater came out swinging with not one but two shows about boxing. If this trend holds, 2015 will bring much to cheer for. Here are our picks for the best sports-meets-art moments for 2014. Read More »

When the Kansas City Royals made the World Series on Wednesday night, their win sparked tweets from an unlikely corner of the internet: opera fans.

Kansas is home to one of opera’s brightest international stars, the mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, who herself is a die-hard Royals fan. Almost immediately, tweets calling for Major League Baseball and the Royals to invite DiDonato to sing the national anthem starting popping with the hashtag #LetJoyceSing. A Change.org petition was set up and currently has about 1,500 supporters. Read More »

Opera superstar Joyce DiDonato topped classical music charts internationally this fall with her new release “Stella di Napoli,” but she uses pop culture to describe what’s on the album: “It’s as if you found out the Beatles have 20 hit tunes they didn’t release.”

The album revisits opera’s nearly lost hits of 19th-century Naples, including deep cuts by well-known composers, such as Rossini and Donizetti, plus once-famous composers whose star status faded over the centuries. Three arias on the album have not been previously recorded.

She’s now taking these rarities directly to 21st-century Brooklyn hipsters: on Friday, she’ll perform a live-streamed launch concert at the Gowanus Ballroom, an alternative arts space sharing a warehouse with a metal shop in a neighborhood best known for its polluted canal. Read More »

Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato has taken the phrase, “Break a leg” to a new level.

During a July 4 performance of “Il Barbiere Di Siviglia” at London’s Royal Opera House, Ms. DiDonato, playing Rosina, tripped and broke her leg partway into the first act. After icing her ankle and undergoing a brief medical exam, she returned with a crutch for the second act–without having missed a minute of her stage-time. What’s more, she’s performing tonight. Read More »

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